


I will rise up (though I be a dead man)

by viewingcutscene



Category: Preacher (TV)
Genre: Drug Use, M/M, Prostitution, Religion Kink, Working Out My Feelings Through Fic, huge fucking bummer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-25 13:22:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7534327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viewingcutscene/pseuds/viewingcutscene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you’re a hundred-year-old addict with a metabolism like a freighter, selling your body now and then for drugs isn’t a big deal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Broken glass jabbed through the denim of Cassidy’s jeans as he sunk to his knees in the garbage-filled, piss-scented alley.  He had no idea if it was 1966, 1996, 2006.  All alleys were the same alley, all times, the same time.  His head wobbled dangerously on its string, threatening him with sobriety.  Just another five minutes.  The dealer grabbed at his hair, but that was good, when they’re eager.  Afterwards comes the shame, and they just wanted you to get your shit and get gone.  It was worse when they were indifferent.  They _shot_ at you, when they were indifferent.

He survives on blood, but prefers steak.  He can’t fucking stand semen, but when you’ve been smoking for over a century, your tastebuds get a little lazy on you.  It was the texture that did it, thick and snotty, like oysters left out in a puddle of melted ice.  Little globs of food poisoning, cradled in pearlescent bowls.

Ah, shite.  The man comes in Cassidy’s mouth, but the thought of the oysters has him spluttering and pulling away, wiping his mouth and gagging over a pile of wadded newspapers and dog shit.

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ, man, pull yourself together,” the dealer says, and tosses a baggie with a fingernail’s worth of crack at Cassidy’s heaving form.  He zips himself up and swaggers out of the alley, a man on top of the world, until the next up and coming kingpin puts a bullet in _his_ head and takes his place.  And Cassidy will be there, on his knees again, at the altar call, praying for one more hit.

He snorts it right there in the alleyway, a greedy little dragon with the world’s most pathetic hoard, and hates himself. He’s had a lot of practice, over the years.


	2. Chapter 2

At thirty thousand feet, Cassidy decided that maybe laying low wasn’t such a bad plan.


	3. Chapter 3

“Look, I know – No! I don’t know how they keep finding me, Jo!  The internet?”

“Just keep a low profile.  The hunters aren’t the only ones on your back now, Cass.  Your client in Vegas is pissed.  Don’t come back in the next decade or so.”

“Just wire me a little cash to get back on my feet and I can – “ The line went dead in Cassidy’s ear.  He slammed the pay phone receiver down.  “There goes my last feckin’ quarter.” It’s fine.  A quiet little life in … Ratwater sounded just fine to him. “Shite!” He kicked a nearby chair, sending it skidding into a stumbling redneck, who tumbled over with a comical _whoop!_   The preacher from the bar was in the midst of a right proper bar brawl, looked like.  He turned, knuckles puffed and bleeding, a grim smirk on his face, and met Cassidy’s eyes. Cassidy saluted him with the bottle in his fist, and leaned against the door jamb to the men’s room to watch the show.

“That’s enough, Preacher!” barked a man by the front door, wearing a sheriff’s badge and a face like a withered turnip.

“Be with you in jus’ a minute, Sheriff,” the preacher said, bent over the arm of one of the brawlers.  He snapped it like a dry branch, bone popping up through torn, bloody skin, and the man howled in shock.  Cassidy’s teeth sharpened just that little bit, seeing it.  The preacher dropped the arm like gnawed rib bone at a church barbeque, and wiped his hands on his pants.

“Your little buddy can come too,” said the Sheriff, nodding at Cassidy.

“What did I do?” he spluttered.

“Hey!” the bartender hollered.  “You plan on paying the tab for that bottle of whiskey?”

Cassidy sighed and put down the empty bottle.  “Take me away, officer.”


	4. Chapter 4

The deputy whistled as he unbuckled up his pants, a rolled up magazine under one arm, heading towards the loo.  When Cassidy banged on the bars of the cell, and hollered at him, “When’s a bloke gonna get fed around here?”, the deputy jumped like someone tweaked him on the ass.

“You still here?” he said.

Cassidy shrugged. “Where else would I be?”

“I figured someone’d bail you out,” the deputy said, unhooking the keys from his belt, and opening the gate.  “Well, whatever.  You’re free to go.”

Cassidy opened his mouth, and in a rare moment of lucidity, closed it again.  What was it to him if this town was absolutely off its cracker when it came to public security?  He’d just never go to that particular bar again, and he was one bottle of whiskey to the good, _gratis._

“Cheers, mate,” he said to the closed bathroom door on his way out. 

The night was warm, scented with ghost of grilled meat from earlier in the day, and spangled with stars.  Cass couldn’t remember them being this bright in Vegas, or San Francisco.  It was almost like the old days, before electric light was everywhere.  On the whole though, he’d take the electricity, every time.

He ambled through the deserted streets, with no particular aim or purpose. There were a few hours yet till dawn, when he’d have to find shelter of some kind.  A nearby telephone pole had a sign with a cross and an arrow pointing east nailed to it, and on a whim, Cassidy found himself turning that way.  He’d liked the passionate young padre, even if he was dead wrong about life having any meaning whatsoever.  Besides, it was part of the job to clothe and feed the hungry and poor, and right now he was both.  

It was about three in the morning by the time Cassidy turned onto the church’s long driveway.  A brief pause to re-arrange the sign (“GO FORTH AND SIN NO MORE” became “ORGASM RODEO” so easily) amused him all the way to the porch of the church, where he discovered the doors ajar and creaking. He sniffed the air, but couldn’t detect anything other than stale smoke and cheap wine.

“Padre?” he called quietly.  Nothing.

He could crash on a pew for now, make firmer arrangements in the morning.  As his eyes adjusted to the dark sanctum, he saw a shadow crumpled in front of the altar. Black on black on black, and breath so soft, Cass hadn’t heard it initially.

“Jaysus, Padre, getting outta the drunk tank to get more wasted, in the Lord’s own house. I gotta admire it.”  Cassidy knelt and reached a hand to shake the preacher’s shoulder, hissing through his teeth when he felt the heat bleeding through his shirt. “That’s no drunken stupor, mate.” No response when shaken; eyes didn’t even flicker when Cass pried open one eyelid, then the other. He sat back on his heels, thinking.  If he helped out, the preacher – Rev. Jesse Custer, according to the sign outside – would be obliged to him, and he’d be lying if he didn’t say hiding out in a church gave him a perverse pleasure in foiling his pursuers.

“Upsy-daisy, then, darlin’,” Cassidy said, and hoisted Jesse into his arms.  Bit like holding a live coal wrapped in cotton and starched linen, really.  He wasn’t much of a medical enthusiast, but high fevers could be dangerous, frying your brains right in your skull, trying to kill the infection inside.  The vicarage connected to the church through the sacristy, and Cass squinted in the dim trying to find the preacher’s bedroom. After a wrong turn into a closet, and the bathroom, he was finally able to lay his burden down.

“Now, stay right there, you,” he said, and bustled off to the kitchen to bang about looking for a bowl and towels.  The freezer had plenty of ice, which he tossed into the bowl, and a half-empty pack of smokes, which made their way into his shirt pocket.  Whistling softly, he came back into the bedroom, where the man sprawled like the dead, exactly where Cassidy’d laid him.

Working with the dead weight wasn’t easy, but Cassidy had strength on his side, and plenty of experience in dressing and undressing the unconscious, so in short order he had managed to strip the preacher down to skivvies.  There was a bit of an awkward scene when he knelt to unlace the shoes, resting his cheek on Jesse’s knee, and realized he could smell the man – a whiff of whiskey and a man in bad need of a shower and despair, the scent of which Cass knew too well.  His stomach growled. “Oh, get off it,” he muttered.

The ice was melting nicely once he had the preacher laid out like a fish, dingy grey undies standing out against the white sheets.  He wet the first towel, and set the others to soaking while he wiped down the preacher’s chest and arms.  The skin was hot and dry but it stippled into gooseflesh at the touch of cold water, which Cassidy took as a good sign. The second cloth, he laid against Jesse’s head, droplets beading on his hair, and rolling down his temples like tears.  Holding the last towel, Cass stared at the underwear again, and breathed deeply through his nose.

“Let’s revisit this idea if ye shit yourself, alright?” he said, and tossed the cloth back into the bowl.  Instead, he rolled Jesse over to his side and pulled the sheets up over him.  Cassidy pulled up a chair for himself, and propped his feet up on the corner of the bed.  Before he dozed off, he watched the unconscious man through half-closed eyes.  Cass hoped very much he would wake up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i probably won't cover too much that's already shown in episodes, since i'm more interested in exploring the stuff we didn't see. but i imagine at some point i'll be verging away from even the show canon.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I saw the streams, the rolling hills  
> Where his brown eyes were waiting  
> And I thought about a pair of brown eyes  
> That waited once for me  
> So drunk to hell I left the place  
> Sometimes crawling sometimes walking  
> A hungry sound came across the breeze  
> So I gave the walls a talking

The woman in the brick-coloured polo didn’t see Cassidy in the corner till she began to rattle back the curtains.

“A-tut-tut-tut!” he said, jumping up to grab her hand, his own narrowly missing the exposed beam of morning light.  She shrieked and flailed out with her free hand.  Cassidy put a finger to his lips, and pointed to the padre in his bed.  “The man’s fevered, aye?”

“Who the fuck are you? What are you doing here?” she said.  She wrenched her hand free but didn’t touch the curtains again.

“Name’s Cassidy,” he replied, offering to shake.  “I’m the new handyman.  For the air conditioning, yeah? Friend of the padre, here.”

“Emily.” She left him hanging, and her cool hazel gaze turned worried as she watched Jesse wince and mutter in his sleep.  The cloth had slipped off his forehead at some point in the night, and Emily picked it up off the pillow, twisting it in her hands.  “He’s never mentioned you before.”

Cass shrugged.  “I rolled into town unexpectedly yesterday.  I’m surprised he didn’t mention you.” Emily had a round, pretty face, thick brown hair and a figure she did no favours by packaging into a frumpy diner uniform. He could see it, the preacher greeting the holy masses Sunday morn with Emily’s fresh American beauty by his side, smiling at parishioners. 

She blushed unexpectedly, as if caught doing something naughty.  “I’m his organist.  Assistant.”

“Assistant organist?” He was teasing, and she knew it.

“ _And_ his assistant.  What’s wrong with him, anyway?” She tucked some loose tendrils of hair behind her ears, and leaned over Jesse, whose face was pinched with pain and fever.  She laid a long-fingered hand against his brow, and winced.  “Ooh, that’s a bad one. How much Tylenol have you given him?”

“None,” Cass said.  Shite, he’d completely forgotten about modern medicine.  Lucky for him, he was an expert liar – and did in fact have a good excuse.  “I didna know what was the cause.  No sense in curing a fever with an overdose, aye?”

“Mm,” Emily said.  She fumbled a pink and white package out of her purse, and popped the blister capsule to eject a small tab of children’s medicine. “Open up.” With Cassidy’s help, she pried open Jesse’s mouth and dropped the tablet under his tongue.  They stood together at the bedside like mourners in silence.  Emily checked her watch with a sigh.

“If ye’ve gotta go, I’ll be here to watch him.”

“Yeah, I have a shift at the diner.  Are you sure?  The air conditioner…”

“If it’s kept this long, it’ll still be there later,” Cassidy said, sitting back in his chair.  “Go on, then.  Nice to meet ye.” 

She pressed the package of children’s Tylenol and balled-up washcloth into his hand.  “If his fever doesn’t break in four hours, give him another dose.  The wet cloths were a good idea.  Try that again in a bit, too.”  A grin broke out on Cassidy’s face. A good idea? Him? The very idea.  Emily rolled her eyes.    
“I’ll come by after my shift and see how he’s doing.”

Emily’s car rumbled away into the distance while Cass watched Jesse toss and twist in his sheets.  He pressed a thumbnail into the package of pills, and cut out one, two, three little foil circles, letting the pills drop into his hand.  He chewed them up one by one, bitter cherry on his palate.  In the mental space all vampires must have, he could feel the sun beating its away across the hard copper dome of the Texas sky.  Cass slipped into the semi-stupor that passed for sleep in his life these days until the preacher’s restlessness stirred him. 

Jesse’s hair stuck every which way, as he rubbed the thick scruff of his beard against the pillow, and whimpered, locked in painful memories or nightmares.  Cass looked away, thinking when the man awoke, he wouldn’t want to be seen like this.  He remembered Emily’s advice, and stood with the bowl in hand to replenish the cool cloths.

> **_“Don’t go…”_ **

Cass turned around.  Jesse’s eyes were open, pupils wide to suck in every scrap of light available in the dim room, black and endless, and fixed on sights beyond this realm. Cass knelt by the bed, and took one of the man’s hands in his own.  They were clenched tight, and he worked his fingers into the fist to massage the deep crescents left there by Jesse’s fingernails. “Padre…” Without thinking, he pressed his lips to the preacher’s slack mouth.  It was hot, and papery dry, and full of warm, human breath.  He leaned his forehead against Jesse’s.  “I’m not goin’ anywhere, hear me?”

Cass cleared his throat and stood.  “But ye need some water.”  He hurried out of the bedroom like the devil himself was after him.  He told himself it was because Jesse was in a bad way and needed help, but deep down, he saw a door in the distance, with honeyed light bleeding all round its frame, and knew he’d taken the first steps toward it.

**Author's Note:**

> luv 2 feel bad about cassidy, my little tragedy garbage heap son


End file.
